This is why I hate DRM, you don't own anything you've paid for and you have permission to access the content only so long as the company you bought it from allows it. What happens when they go out of business? You can't access your data any more because the authorisation servers will be gone.

Yet another reason why I'll stick with real, physical books.

This explains why I don't have a Kindle better than I ever could. Any book reader that I will buy will not be able to do this. And, honestly, it makes a great case for those people that transfer their pruchases to DRM-free formats.

Wow, the irony. Anxiously wanting to read about censorship, and information being controlled. BANG-ZOOM! Your virtual library is censored, and information is being controlled. I wonder if SciFi Wire has ever done anything like that.....

Crimethink! Doubleplus ungood books go memory hole.

Goodthinker crimestop malreported.

Well - I guess i dont need a Kindle!

I've been meaning to pick up Animal Farm. I guess I'll be going to the used book store instead of buying new. If a publisher is going to be that idiotic, they don't deserve my money.

I've really wanted to get a Kindle, but publishers, with Amazon's consent with shit like this, keep finding ways of turning me away.

We live in dystopia... old new

2012 is close enough anyway

'Someday they won't let you.
Now you must agree.
The times are a changing
And the changing isn't free.
You read it in the tea leaves
And the tracks are on TV.
Beware the savage jaws
Of 1984.' - quote from David Bowie's song based on the novel.

We're in disturbing times. I keep getting told how Kindle will replace real books and it seems books are being replaced by things that can easily be taken away from us... things we paid for. Taken from us by force... I'm scared...

Ignorance is strength.
Freedom is slavery.
War is peace.
And Big Brother is Watching...

You know, it's almost like George Orwell used this irony to warn us. The book about Big Brother watching is what was taken away from people who had legally paid for it by an overly powerful corporation. Can you smell the irony blooming? It's a warning.

'Someone to claim us!
Someone to follow!
Someone to shame us.
Some brave Apollo.
Someone to fool us.
Someone like you!
We want you Big Brother!' - The song Big Brother by David Bowie.

Isn't 1984 public domain by now? Why do people have to pay for it at all?

Yanthor, lots of books are public domain that we still have to buy like Dracula.

Well here I was going to buy a Kindle this fall, now I don't think I will unless they do a reversal on this kind of activity.

"Isn't 1984 public domain by now? Why do people have to pay for it at all?"

If they are public domain, you're essentially just paying for the privilege of somebody else having gone through the effort of publishing the work.

In the end, nothing's free.

Btw, a quick check of Wikipedia shows that 1984, Orwell's last novel, will not enter public domain (barring another change in copyright law) for another 35 years in the United States. And in this situation, only US copyright law matters.

Wow. That sounds terrible. digital is so overrated. I even hate buying mp3s. The only one I've ever bought is The Yeah Yeah Yeahs acoustic version of "Turn Into" because there was no hard copy. Everything else I own is on CD. Not that this could happen with itunes, but you know....

Well, if the companies are treating the e-book users as if they are lending a book from a library, in stead of actually buying it, then they should charge prices equivalent to those charged by libraries.

You either pay full price and actually own the book in whatever format (paper or digital) it is made available, or you pay a lending fee to be able to read it. They can't have both.

This is the main problem for digital formats. The companies see it as "selling" content, in stead of actually a physical file.
While a paper book can be bought and then sold again to some other person (and so on) a digital book can only be sold once.
Try selling it again or giving it away. If at all possible, it will be very difficult.

So can anybody tell me what I actually own when buying a digital book?
AIR?

Well, you don't even own the air.

Online books are crap. Either buy the book or print off the free version. Doing anything else is plain stupid.

I wonder why a book about a government that suppresses freedom and free thought has been removed? It is time to wake up or we will be practicing the new math of 2+2+5!!

Project Gutenberg (Australia) has it available as a .txt file at http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

Thats why I have my copy on PDF and keep it on a thumb drive. Take it to any computer to view.

Next off the shelves is Fahrenheit 451, as a name like Kindle will lead us to believe. Libraries around the world are the best resource there is and yet everything is done to render them useless...

People, tone down the panic! I have been an avid ebook reader for nearly a decade now. I use eReader (now Barnes and Nobel) on my Treo, and I would never consider a dedicated reader like the Kindle for this reason.

With eReader, I OWN THE BOOKS. They can never take my copy away from me or make it cease to function. The only thing they can do if a publisher backs out is remove the book from my virtual library so I cannot re-download it, but I still have my original. It is DRM protected, but it is a one-time unlock, no servers involved.

Don't condemn the ebook industry due to the idiotic Kindle. Branch out and try eReader or one of their competitors.

I will never buy a kindle for this reason. Books are easier to read off of, you get to hold your copy in your hands, and no publisher can decide that suddenly they don't want to distribute copies of the book and steal it back from you.

I still buy my music on CDs for this reason. I can rip to Media Player and then transfer to my mp3 player... Books I still prefer paper because I can adjust my light, I dont have to worry about the battery, and I like the feel of paper.

I spend enough time with electronics for work and then checking out various websites and email

Good Job SyFy at posting a story that's already been corrected, They deleted it because they never had the right to sell it in the first place! the NY times got the story wrong..
http://www.betanews.com/article/Media-goes-crazy-over-Amazon-deleting-1984-from-Kindle-but-99cent-ebook-was-illegal-copy/1247874134

The press loves a juicy story, and Amazon served one up on a silver platter this morning by automatically deleting certain copies of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm from customers' Kindles. But many facts were left out of this media frenzy, namely that the ebooks were essentially pirated copies sold for 99-cents by a company that had no rights to the material.

mhochman, that doesn't justify taking it away from people who paid for it. It IS equatable to someone coming into your home and taking something that is yours because the person you bought it from was dishonest or made a mistake. Nothing's changed.

Oh I agree completely that they should not have removed it, and i'm not trying to justify Amazon's actions, i'm just pointing out that SyFy posted a story, as many media outlets did, with very little fact checking... Orwell isn't rolling in his grave, but Walter Crokite is.. and he hasn't actually been buried yet...

My biggest concern about this isn't the loss of an item that was bought, but the lack of privacy it implies, if Amazon can get into your Kindle when it wants to, without your approval or even knowledge.

they don't "Get into" your kindle, they just flag your account on their end and when you connect your kindle to sync, it deletes it. not much different than syncing an iPod.

As for trying to equate going into your home and taking something you paid for, that's not quite an accurate analogy, since you bought an illegal item from a disohnest person, because recieving stolen goods is a crime in and of itself, if you buy a stolen rolex, and the guy gets busted, you better believe the cops are going to knock on your door and ask for it back, and they are most likely NOT going to give you your money back.

Again, i'm not defending amazon removing the e-Book without telling people the actual reason why. as i think they should have announced the actual reason.

This is why I pirate.

to J.S.

Argh! Now, where's my rum?

"We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances."

Which is no guarantees that they won't do it to you again under OTHER circumstances.

That they CAN do this is disturbing enough. That they HAVE and MIGHT do it again is enough to keep me off the Kindle.

No thank you, I'm not paying Amazon a couple hundred bucks to earn the right for them to blow up my books whenever they want. I'll get hard copies from the library or buy the books the old fashioned way.

I don't see why there has to be drm at all, I lend books to friends all the time, so why the hell shouldn't I be allowed to lend them ebooks?

How Ironic...

i use my palm to read my ebooks i wonder if when i hotsync they have the ability to remove. Never mind I'm sure they do.

I guess I won't be buying a kindle after all.

How IRONIC! This is why I will never buy a Kindle. I'll stick to good old paper books...yeah, that can't be remotely deleted!

So if they can delete books does that mean they can change the content also? What if "they" decide to rewrite history like making Lincoln a Democrat or saying the Soviet Union did not persecute dissidents. Can they change or delete news if the story does not agree with their political views...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Let the Paranoia begin!

What started out as simple copyright violations, has now escilated to rewriting history, and changing the content of books, Congrats, this thread has just jumped the shark.

Whats next Digital Book Burning!!!

Exactly why I won't "buy" a book that has an EULA!

"according to amazon two books in question were published for the Kindle by a company called Mobile Reference, which offers public domain books for around $1. Mobile Reference did not have the right to sell Orwell's novels because 1984 and Animal Farm are still under copyright protection in the United States"

funny that...they're public domain in europe but not in america...Thanks sonny bono

i hear that the two books removed were books that the publisher had no right to sell, he didn't own the rights to them. if that's say, then what they did was the legal thing to do. however, they could have done it in better way for customers! but if it's true, i don't think it could affect books you've bought by publishers that go out of business, only books you've bought from people that have no right to sell them.

I think this is why Ray Bradbury refused to let yahoo put his books online.

@Anita Bonghit: Of course they can. If they haven't taken your copy of 1984 you could read the part where they say "he who controls the past controls the future". That's exactly what Winston (the main character in the book) did as his career. That's really sad with what happened, but that's why I own bookshelves.

Doubleplusungood!

After fighting the pressure from friends, family, and colleagues to move to digital books, I was actually on the verge of purchasing a Kindle. Glad I read this article first. This action on the part of the publisher and amazon.com is exactly why I've been so reluctant to make the move to digital print media. Once I pay for a book, I expect to own it forever (unless, of course, I choose to sell it or give it away).

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR has been one of my favorite novels ever since I was a teenager, and I've seen the signs of the encroachment of Big Brother for decades. Isn't it interesting that it is an incident involving this very novel that reveals how much of a foothold Big Brother is gaining in the Digital Age?

I own hundreds of physical books and probably around 100 digital books purchased mostly to be read on ebook for palm and now for iphone. I also have the kindle software for iPhone and have purchased several books. The reason I purchase digital books now is because I always have room in my school bag or pants pocket for my phone but not always for an extra book. Also quite frankly, I have no room left on my books shelves and I continue to want to read. I agree with the person above who said that Amazon did the right thing but went about it the completely the wrong way. I also agree with the person who said that when we purchase a book in any format, we should own it.

I buy a lot of digital books, usually from the publisher directly (i.e. Baen & TOR). Whenever I buy one with DRM I remove it. It's the same with my music, I remove anything that would keep me from enjoying it on any device, computer, PDA or player I own. What I do is not illegal since I brought the rights for my "personal" use of the contents. As long as I don't distrubute the contents to anyone else it remains legal no matter what publishers and the music industry try to claim. It's a common misconception that ripping a CD or DVD is illegal. Whats illegal is ripping one you don't own or distrubuting the file to someone else.

Gotta agree with mhochman. The fact that 1984 was "disappeared" from Kindle makes for a good blog in ironic jest, but really this is nothing at all like the political climate of 1984 or the censorship of Fahrenheit 481. I mean, you live in a world with piles of copies in remainder bins, regular bookstore shelves, libraries, freakin project Gutenberg. The fact that people find it no longer available via their favorite _commercial_ literature service and seriously liken that inconvenience to dystopian conditions is laughably pathetic. Hedonistic lotus eaters are plugged into too many recreational outlets to recognize the real dire circumstances in the world.

"It's a common misconception that ripping a CD or DVD is illegal."

Actually, under the DMCA, ripping a DVD *IS* illegal. It's circumventing copyright, which is against the DMCA.

And, yeah, it's your fair use rights being pissed on with that law.

In the end, this whole thread of comments should be saved for Epic Reaction Fail and Epic Complete Story Fail.

Paying for things: For chumps since they invented USENET.

Oooh Whew Amazon. Take out gun. Shoot self in foot. There goes any plans I had to purchase a kindle.

Looks like Yahoo has pulled this story after only a few hours.

I wonder what else they can do with your Kindle. Maybe I am just being paranoid, but the thought of Amazon gaining access to my personal property and controlling it is very unsettling.

Anita Bonghit at 12:09 AM ON 07/19/09

So if they can delete books does that mean they can change the content also? What if "they" decide to rewrite history like making Lincoln a Democrat or saying the Soviet Union did not persecute dissidents. Can they change or delete news if the story does not agree with their political views...

My immediate first thought!!!!!!! I'm glad I have my beautiful hardback copy (from Amazon BTW) that I just finished reading (frightenly close to coming true, IMHO). They can't take it away unless they break down my front door!

I know the artist, but I dont' see that he's given any credit. Anyone know where this picture was taken from?

There is a way around this process, at least as far as the kindle is concerned. If you purchased the e-book from another party and send the document to amazon to be converted for the kindle, then it is a personal document and they can't do anything to them.

Thought technology is a great tool... it should never be used to hamper the education of the masses. I'm one who believes in actually holding a book in my hand. I like the feel of it. The weight of it. Even the smell of a book. Electric books lack so much! This is just another reason why I will never use any form of technology other than the modern printing press to read a good story.

you can get most books on torrent. for free. i read them on a hacked psp. screw those guys.